Friday, November 28, 2008

EDIT 11:20 EST Thursday Night: THESE PRICES ARE LIVE NOW!! SPACE SKULLS AND STAR JUSTICE ARE ALSO JUST $34.99!!

Sorry for the lack of real posts this week, but this offer is so good, I'm sure you really want to hear about it first: LEGO Shop at Home is running Black Friday sales (and the free shipping when you spend over $99 offer still applies)!

In ADDITION to that already great deal, they will also be running 50% off the UCS General Grievous kit and 50% off the spectacular Custom Car Garage factory set (designed by Joe Meno, Joe Evangelista, and Stephen Sanders).

I don't talk too often on here about the LEGO sets I'm planning on buying, but I'm definitely grabbing the Custom Car Garage at that price. That's the deal of the day.

If you want other US Black Friday deals (that I'm not paid to promote), here's the list of things that may be available in your area (updating this as I find out more, feel free to send me your sale tips):

Target has 6211 Imperial Star Destroyer 40% off ($59.99) and select other deals (30% off basic brick buckets has been running all week and I'm told they have unadvertised deals as well).

Details: Here's a turkey. We all knew there'd be a turkey sometime this week. This cute little turkey would work well as a centerpiece, and only uses common colors and parts. If you can't figure out how to do the eyes - they're 1x2 Technic bricks with 1x1 plates stuck in the middle (yes - you really can stick other bricks and plates directly into the side of Technic bricks and beams).

Apologies for the lack of posts this week - I unexpected had more "real work" to do then I expected. Regular posts will be back starting next week, but I might try to get a few more posts in this week as well. I hope all of my readers have a happy Thanksgiving and a bargain-filled Black Friday.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

For those of you interested in knowing more about the new Pirates parts, I put together a few comparison photos of the new Pirates parts this past weekend:

First, the flags, new parts on top, original ones on bottom:
It's not that clear from the box art, but the new alligators/crocodiles are dark green instead of regular green (also, the new tails fit more snugly and move less once assembled):

The other photos aren't really good enough to bother posting, but here are the details:

The oars and cannon-holders are technically new, but the changes to the mold are extremely minor and not worth mentioning. The oars and boats are in new colors (white oars, dark blue boats, as compared to red and brown oars with brown and black boats). My sources tell me that the "new" shooting cannons are actually the same as the older shooting cannons, but obviously these ones are in a new color (pearl dark grey instead of old dark grey). I was always told that the shooting cannons weren't available to me because of toy safety laws - I have no idea why they're available now, but I'd recommend not pointing these spring-loaded cannons at anybody.

Is there demand for a side-by-side comparison of the new minifigs and old minifigs? The differences on those are easy to spot (printed hats, dark green legs and hats, printed backs on torsos, new fronts on torsos, new faces...)

Details: I like to think that building a safe (or some other sort of security system) is a "classic project" for Mindstorms fans. I know it was one of the first things I tried building. Of course, it's a bit easy to just start taking the LEGO bits apart, so it's a project that usually gets abandoned before too much is done with it.

This builder, though, decided to order some special HiTechnic sensors and make the safe impossible to mess with. Sensitive to motion, it will trigger an alarm when tilted or pushed. The video above is essential viewing, and the website link includes an impressive amount of documentation, including code and LDRAW instructions.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Details:The Brickish Association Events page features links to videos, photos, and other recap material from members of the Brick Association. It's a well-organized way to round-up events they've already had - and hey, they have a list of upcoming events on there too (I'm in the process of adding these to the BrickJournal Calendar). Many of the models shown in these photos have been featured here before, but there's something special about seeing many excellent models in the same layout (and of course, there are plenty of great models out there that don't get individually featured here). Warning: there are enough pictures here to make sure you don't get anything else done all day.

Details: Occasionally, someone will introduce himself (or herself) to the LEGO fan community with such a bold, original, how-did-he-do-that-with-LEGO-parts style that it just takes everyone by surprise. This is one of those builders. I don't care what you think of Steampunk, minifig-scale, or Bionicle - these are truly works of art. There are technically 5 models here, but only 15 photos. I found myself going to the "All Sizes" link on every one to decipher what was going on. So many of these parts are the sort of thing people tend to write off as useless - it's truly shocking to see some of them put to such great use. To see so many of them used so well in this context is mind-blowing. Just to top that off, there are a few more common pieces - but they're all used in unusual ways (note the boat sections that turn into jaws on the HMS Vern).

For those of you who can order from the LEGO Shop-at-Home but don't receive the catalog, they are currently running a "Free Shipping when you spend $99 or more" offer. I intend to put together some sort of "gift guide" in the near future, but in the meantime, you can use the link below to get to the official LEGO Shop-at-Home website and take advantage of this free shipping offer:

It's become something of a tradition for the LEGO company to let toy megastore Toys 'R' Us sell a variety of items from the next year's line immediately after Thanksgiving (no one seems to know quite when this started, but my records prove it goes back as far as 1991). This year, new sets have leaked out at TRU even sooner than usual - exciting new kits that revive the Pirates theme are already available. I don't have time to review the whole line, so I'll let my friend Brickapolis at the LEGO Set News Worldwide flickr Group pick up the slack.

Of course, you're frugal like me, so you don't want to pay the 10%-20% markup that Toys 'R' Us often charges on LEGO sets. TRU is one of the most expensive retailers in the USA (and I'm told that their prices are worse in most other countries). Fortunately, there is a a new printable "15% off any one toy item" coupon good through November 20th. Sorry for the short notice, but I hope that some of you can enjoy the savings while checking out the new sets.

No, you're not imagining things - posts are a bit lean this week. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Details: Sometimes you can do something beautiful just by re-imagining a few parts at a different scale. It only took one extra part to turn these starfishes into turtles, for example. The egg shells and beach make it adorable, but it was already darn clever to start with. If the starfish part doesn't look familiar to you, that may be because it's a Scala part - Scala is one of those "girly" lines that people tend to skip over without realizing how many great exclusive parts are there.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Details: Here's an interesting find: a series of vignettes about annoying things that happen when people plan thoughtlessly. It's a very effective set of vignettes. I'm having a hard time putting words to them well - there are only a few photos here, but they do a surprisingly good job of speaking for themselves.

Details:Shepherd Fairey's iconic imagery depicting America's new President-Elect has been rendered in LEGO® form a surprising amount of times. It's kind of hard to pick one to feature - although it's even harder to try to find a good minifig-scale version of him (the LEGO company infamously took way too long to start making minifigs with non-yellow skin colors).

Since all manner of these seem to be turning up on eBay, I think it's time to talk about how "real" mosaics ought to be done. For one thing, the dithering used by most software-based approaches to mosaic planning doesn't usually look that good, and it should be avoided any time that the correct color is available from LEGO. Note how the mosaic shown above uses all 6 common colors (red, yellow, blue, white, black, and green) for the medium-blue section, instead of solid medium blue. The next thing many people try is just adding another color to the software's palette, such as this other mosaic, which makes use of medium-blue but still has some dithering.

Surprisingly, even with a primitive web-based program (LUGNET Mosaic Maker), you can still come up with some amazing designs that are as good as the ones on eBay. Using plates stacked up instead of spreading bricks (or plates, or tiles) on a baseplate allows for higher photo resolution, such as this design I just made virtually. If you do stick with a studs-out mosaic making on a baseplate (and that large 96-stud, 30-inch size), you can still get some great effects without resorting to dithering: Of course, you'll probably need to spend a good amount of change we can build with...

Details: The White House is one of those classic landmarks that's been done very well many times. It's tempting to say that this one only attracted attention because it was published so close to election day. That would be wrong, though - at just 12 studs wide, this is the one of the smallest White House models out there (as you can see at the links above, the same builder has also made a 6-wide version). If that wasn't enough, the entire thing was built out of parts currently in the LEGO Factory palette and designed with LEGO Digital Designer (free download from LEGO.com) software. There is some pretty clever parts usage too - columns are made from 1x1 bricks with bars, and windows are made from sideways 1x1 studs-not-on-top "headlight" bricks. The 1x1 cheese slopes make a perfect roof on one side, while the other side uses 2x2 macaroni bricks to emphasize the rounded section. Using tiles for the sides works surprisingly well, and you have to love the landscaping - it's just well places lime 1x1 round plates and a variety of tiles.

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